The Entrepreneur’s Studio
The Entrepreneur’s Studio
Building a Billion-Dollar Industry Before It Existed | Blake Lawrence
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What if the biggest business opportunity of your career didn't exist yet?
Long before college athletes could earn money through NIL, Blake Lawrence saw a future that everyone else thought was impossible. Instead of waiting for the rules to change, he spent years building the technology and infrastructure that would eventually power one of the fastest-growing industries in sports.
Blake Lawrence is the co-founder of Opendorse, the leading athlete marketplace and NIL technology platform used by more than 200,000 athletes worldwide. A former Nebraska linebacker whose football career ended unexpectedly after multiple concussions, Blake transformed personal adversity into a mission to help athletes build careers that extend far beyond the game.
In this episode, Blake shares the entrepreneurial journey behind Opendorse, the risks of building a company years before its market existed, and what founders can learn about betting on the future. He also explains how NIL is transforming college athletics, why today's student-athletes are becoming entrepreneurs at 18 years old, and what business leaders can learn from hiring athletes and investing in personal brands.
Key Points
- Why building for the future often means solving problems before the market exists.
- How NIL is creating a new generation of entrepreneurs by teaching athletes business, branding, and financial responsibility.
- Why founders should embrace coaching, build around core values, and know when it's time to bring in experienced leadership.
Quote from the Episode
"You never know when your last play is going to be... so make the most of every opportunity."
— Blake Lawrence
Resources & Links
Blake Lawrence
Website: https://opendorse.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakelawrence/
X: https://x.com/blakelawrence
If this conversation challenged the way you think about entrepreneurship, leadership, and building for the future, subscribe to The Entrepreneur's Studio and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Then share this episode with an entrepreneur, founder, coach, or student-athlete who could benefit from Blake's perspective on creating opportunity before everyone else sees it.
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So every athlete that you see on TV, like Leo Messi, uses open doors. Like that's a really cool thing to say. He had a hat trick in the World Cup. Yeah.
Chris AllenYeah.
SPEAKER_02But he's a user in Tiger Woods and Patrick Mahomes is an investor. And like things like this that are really fun to say. Never imagined them day one, but we put our heads down and said we're going to solve this problem. We're going to help athletes make the most of this moment. And it just has turned into now 200,000 athletes around the world use open doors every day to manage endorsements and NIL deals.
Chris AllenWelcome back to the Entrepreneur Studio Podcast. I'm Chris Allen, and today we're joined by Blake Lawrence, co-founder of Open Doors, the leading athlete marketplace and NIL technology company helping power the modern athlete endorsement industry. Long before NIL became a part of the national conversation, Blake recognized an athlete's personal brand would become one of the most valuable assets in sports. Through OpenDorse, he's helped shape the technology and infrastructure that's transformed athlete endorsements into a thriving new economy. In this live conversation, Blake shares the story behind building Open Doors, the evolution of the NIL landscape, and what every entrepreneur can learn about creating value, adapting to change, and building a business at the center of a rapidly evolving industry. Here's our conversation with OpenDoor's founder, Blake Lawrence. Well, Blake, it's good to have a venture-backed co-founder sitting at the table with me.
unknownYeah.
Chris AllenI'm excited to share the story. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Blake and I have known each other for a long time. And uh, you know, you've spent the last several years shaping one of the most disruptive shifts really in modern sports through athlete branding and digital ownership and NIL. Everybody needs to know what NIL is. But I'm curious to know what made you realize that athlete branding in NIL was really becoming such a massive opportunity.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm gonna have to take you all the way back to 2009. Uh I'm a starting linebacker at Nebraska. So shout out to the Corn Oscars. And we were the number one defense in the country. I was playing alongside a guy named Indominuk and Sue. The guys who played my position the last three years got drafted in the NFL. The guy who played after me got drafted in the NFL. So I was on a path to play in the NFL. And, you know, woke up big man on campus in October 2009 uh feeling real good about myself and went to bed that night knowing I could never play football again.
Chris AllenDang.
SPEAKER_02I was, yeah, I was done uh in a day. I had suffered four concussions in a year. I was forgetting my name and where I was. Um, so I had to figure out what's next. And this is not unique to me. I think every founder has that pivot moment. It's like, who am I in this identity crisis? So I had to figure out what I wanted to do after sports. And that is the pinpoint in the athlete journey is that if they're leveraging their time while in the spotlight to build an audience, they could maybe springboard into a new career. Yeah. And that's exactly what I got to do.
Chris AllenYeah, yeah. I mean, well, that one came early for you. Every athlete's got to go, like, hey, when is my next thing coming? And this one really came early for you. But the thing is that what one of the things that was exciting is you were like, uh, you grew up in sports, right? And so that was one of the things we were like, how do I make a career in sports? And I think there's a lot of people who, you know, have been in sports for a long time and figure out, hey, what's my career? But talk about how open doors was born.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, certainly. That was so from that moment, again, everyone that's been through this as a founder and entrepreneur. Who am I? And and I I leaned into what got me to the level of you know, starting linebacker and one of the best teams in the last 20 years at Nebraska, uh, was energy, focus, passion. And I figured I couldn't play football anymore, but if I could put that into entrepreneurship, I would have success. So in 2010, I started a social media agency helping some of my teammates at Nebraska that went off the NFL manage their Twitter account. Uh, then we started working with businesses, helping them manage their Twitter account. Yeah. And then whenever our businesses needed a boost and following, we would pay the athletes to post on Twitter about these businesses. We found ourselves right in the middle of this athlete endorsement industry, and we realized it kind of sucked. It was uh no technology, everything spreadsheets, phone calls, agents, worksheets, all this in the back end. So we decided to build an app. You know, 2012 was kind of that era of influencer marketing didn't exist, yeah, creator marketing didn't exist, the app store had really just kind of come to life. So we said, let's build a solution to help manage endorsements. And that was in 2012. And that became the foundation for open doors. And the journey has not been linear since then, but it really started with understanding that for me personally, seeing my career cut short, I wanted to help my teammates make sure that they didn't end up in the same spot where they were done and had to figure out what's next. They wanted to help build their audience while they still had spotlight, and then realized that this endorsement thing that comes along with it needs some help, and that became the foundation for our company.
Chris AllenWell, the one of the things that was awesome is when you get uh Tiger Woods on your platform and you get him posting on your platform, he gets an open doorsext. Yeah, he's about to publish something for the tour or for some other brand, which was that's pretty cool. Tiger Woods on your platform.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is one of those things you'd you dream of this idea that eventually in in 2013, uh, we randomly got an inbound message uh from the NFL Players Association asking if they could meet with us about using our platform for all NFL players. At the time we had like 10 athletes using it, and we fought to DC brokered that deal with NFL PA that led to MLBPA, NHLPA, PGA tour. So every athlete that you see on TV, like Leo Messi uses open doors. Like that's a really cool thing to say. He had a hat trick in the World Cup last night. Yeah. Uh and but he's a user and Tiger Woods and and Patrick Mahomes is an investor and like things like this that uh are are really fun to say, never imagine them day one, but we put our heads down and said, we're gonna solve this problem, we're gonna help athletes make the most of this moment. And it just has turned into now 200,000 athletes around the world use open doors every day to manage endorsements and NIL deals.
Chris AllenYeah. Well, I mean, the the thing that's really wild is if you think about NIL and tell everybody what that is here in just a second, but like you're you started off in the pro space, and there was a reason why you could only sort of sit in the pro space for such a long period of time. Now, those are some big names and those associations and two and and leagues, those are huge wins for you guys. But tell us a little bit about why you were in the pro space uh and why uh Mr. College Athlete was so enthusiastic about another space.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, certainly. This is something we are a venture capital-backed company, and our our first very first round of funding, meeting with the Flyover Capital in Kansas City to raise a $5 million round of funding in 2014. They sat down and looked at us and said, Hey, we believe that Open Door is a hundred million dollar company. I said, That's fantastic. That's good to hear. Uh, what would make it a billion-dollar company? And I remember sitting back and I said, To make this a billion-dollar company, we're gonna have to do something illegal. And that's exactly how they reacted. Said, wait, what do you mean? And I went into it, I said in 2014, college athletes could not be paid for use of their name, image, and likeness. They could not get paid to do endorsements. But the only way that makes open doors a billion-dollar company is if one day college athletes could get paid for endorsement deals. Because in the pro sports space, there's about 5,000 athletes in North America that make money through these deals. Yeah. In the college sports space, there's 500,000 college athletes every year that compete. So it's a hundred times bigger market. That's what makes this a billion dollar opportunity. But at the time, there was no clear path. I mean, it was 2014. College athletes getting paid didn't happen until 2021. So we had a seven-year window of building the infrastructure for an industry that we didn't know would ever exist. It's quite a bet in terms of a business model because it's paid off handsomely.
Chris AllenWell, uh, being venture-backed, um, you you got to talk about that. It's like, you know, every time I talk to a founder who has raised funds that way, like, you know, friends and family round to an angel round, uh, or you're like, oh, no, let's go, let's go venture-backed, right? Like, would you do it again? And what was what what's sort of the founder experience raising money like that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, anyone that has raised capital from a VC firm or any entity that's more established like that is knows that it comes with expectations. And myself, my co-founder, Audi Kenalik, both, we both played football in Nebraska, and I don't mind those expectations. It's like having a coach and pressure, and you got to go win. Yeah, there you go. Um, and it's not a it's not a game anymore. This is not backyard football. This is the big time. And that's what I think about when you bring on venture capital. And when one of my my favorite things that I've learned in the venture capital community is that like our very the front that invested our first round, it was a $50 million fund. And they own about 20% of our business now. Over the year, they they've acquired more and more of the company. And their goal is every investment they make has to return the fund, right? So if they have a $50 million fund, they own 20% of our business, they don't want to sell their stake until openers is worth $250 million. Yeah. And so everything that we do is about going to board meetings and saying, like, how are we increasing the enterprise value so that if there is an exit and outcome, their shares are worth $50 million. So they have one investment that returns the entire fund. The weight and the pressure that comes along with that is interesting. And there's no clear path for any founder to say, well, I'm going to get here by this date and time, you're going to get your money back. And these guys are 12 years in and they still haven't had that liquidity event. And there's weight and pressure with that. But they see where we're at in the trajectory of the company and you know, processing hundreds of millions of dollars in payments and um on our way to a $100 million in revenue. Like that's that's where they want us to be.
Chris AllenYeah.
SPEAKER_02But they wanted us to be there about 10 years ago.
Chris AllenYep. So no, no doubt. Yeah. Well, the the whole landscape has changed. Talk about the moment that you know you're literally in the room with the NCAA, telling them what they should do, right? And why that was so much sort of uh belief that open doors was going to be the platform of choice and how that all changed. No, I think you were there that day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. One of the fun things is Chris and I worked together, um, brought Chris on to do marketing when we absolutely needed it. And a lot of things that I say here today, I learned from Chris Allen. So thank you for being a part of our journey. Uh, 2019, we're five years into venture capital funding. I keep telling them, like, hey, we're prepared for a future that's not here yet. And we get a letter in the mail from the NCAA, the largest governing body in college sports. Again, you're in the office. And it's a letter that says, We are contemplating paying college athletes, like letting them get paid. You are the only person that's built technology for this industry. Can you come meet with us? And so that bet, a five-year bet paid off when we got that letter. Yep. So we met with the NCA, joined the working group, and what was really fun is that Chris and I kind of got to set the rules of how this is gonna work because there was no other technology provider. So we built the infrastructure in that pitch that we won. We won the RFP to be the back end that every single transaction the NCA was gonna allow 500,000 athletes to do had to go through our platform. Pretty dang cool. Uh, so we won that RFP and being able to set the rules, like we just put ourselves in place that again, the bet paid off. Flyovers like, yes. Yeah, they're like, yes, you're gonna win, right? And then uh the the day before NIL went live, something happened, right? I you I can dive into it because that was the lowest ball. Post Chris Allen. Yeah. July 1st, 2021. So we're coming up on five years of college athletes being able to make money. So when you hear the word NIL, just think college athletes getting paid. That's what that means. The schools can pay them now, but back in 2021, it was hey, everyone but the schools can pay. And the NCA, when we won that RFP, was gonna say every athlete that gets paid has to disclose this transaction through this platform open doors that becomes like the clearinghouse to track and see like, is this the school paying the athlete or someone else? June 30th, 2021, we are 24 hours from actually going live. We get a phone call from the NCA saying we we gotta pull the plug. And we've spent several million dollars building this platform on spec. We're like, hey, can we sign this contract? We can't sign the contract until the the rules change. Okay, so the rules are changed in July 1st, so we're gonna get paid on July 1st, right? June 30th, they pulled the plug. No clearinghouse, the lawyers wouldn't allow it, they were fearful of litigation, and so we're sitting there having put a tremendous amount of effort in winning this RFP, building out the infrastructure, uh, telling our investors that we had won and we simply lost, and it was outside of our control. And that would be a moment where most people just run away. Yeah, for sure. But the calendar flipped over to July 1st, 2021, and we had a hundred thousand athletes we had to go help. So we didn't run away, we just leaned into monetizing in different ways. Uh, but that journey from having a vision that this could happen to it becoming a reality to winning it, to setting the rules and then not being able to win that day kind of sets you back as a founder and entrepreneur. And but again, that's not unique to me. Every founder has those those stories.
Chris AllenBut you guys uh found a way to go deeper in the college athlete space, right? You jumped into education to help uh college athletes understand, you know, to start being commercially minded, right? Right. Uh and I think that that's a that's a change that's worth talking about, is what athletes when in your era and before, right, as a college athlete versus the college of athletes now, right? Talk talk to us a little bit about what what has gone on in that college sort of athlete's mind and and what what has changed and maybe what has improved as it were as a result of what comes out of the machine now.
SPEAKER_02Certainly. So I want to take you back to that era 2015 to 2021, you know, venture capital back, we're partnering with the NBA and and and MLB and all these guys. And I remember being in a conference room not too different than this in New Jersey with every NBA draft pick. Right. So when they go through and they get picked, they have to go through training with the players association and learn like what are taxes? Yeah. Like, should you have an agent? Why you should have a financial advisor? And these are 21, 22-year-old men. There's like Luka Doncic and Trey Young and and and DeAndre Ait, and some of the biggest names that in the NBA today, like we're just sitting next to them, these guys don't know anything about business. And they're about to make tens of millions of dollars. And that's an interesting moment because when you think about the broader ecosystem of athletes, again, 500,000 athletes compete in the NCAA every year, 200,000 of them graduate and leave and go into life. Um but the subset that get drafted 60 NBA players, 400 NFL players, uh, you know, uh 500 MLB players, but there's like a thousand of them that then get formally trained on how to become entrepreneur-minded and manage their own money. Like there's a such a small group of them get that. That most athletes just go into the workforce and they just are like every other college student. Today, those same sessions happen on a college campus from division three, division two, division one, NAIA, NJCAA. They all go through that same education that only a subset of pro athletes got five, six, you know, a decade ago. Every college athlete gets it. So they're going into college with an entrepreneur mindset. These guys are founders of their own business. No doubt. They're getting paid by the school to come to compete and play. They're getting paid by businesses through open doors to become ambassadors and do endorsements. And so they're learning how to become business minded at 18 years old. I think this is the greatest movement and wave of young founders and entrepreneurs is actually happening in college sports because they have to. They have to learn how to manage money. They have to learn how to show up and sign contracts and be reputable.
Chris AllenI love that, you know, moving that forward, right? Like pulling that forward where they're 18 and they're getting that that kind of education. But go take us through like a particular athlete. Uh, you know, I know there's some volleyball players that do really awesome. There's a, there's a ton of people that these athletes, they they sort of break out and become a figure. What, what, what is sort of like a day in the life and how they interact, you know, with open doors, but how they are are making money. Give us some figures about how much money they're making and what a day in the life is like.
SPEAKER_02Certainly. So I will I'll I'll do the day in the life first. And I'll give you an example of uh there's a woman named uh Andy Jackson. She's one of the most followed college athletes in the country. She plays volleyball at Nebraska. That might smile my mother, so it's low-hanging fruit. When she shows up to Nebraska very first day, they say, Hey, welcome to Nebraska. Here's your books, here's your calendar. Download the open doors app, download our app, right? So that becomes part of the experience. And then inside that app, it's like, hey, Andy, like, here are the lessons you need to learn about building a brand, how to manage your social channels, like what to post, what not to post, like how to find an agent, uh, how to make money on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, whatever it is. And so there's all these education courses, which you were foundational in us building out all of the athlete education with an open doors. So she's gonna learn from that. Then she's gonna go to practice, go to class, and then after practice, all the photos from the practice she just uh you know finished are on her phone in the open doors app so she can post it to social to build up her audience, and then she's gonna post some from that. Then she's going to get an alert that says Runza, a local restaurant, would like for you to do an appearance tonight at five o'clock. You will get paid $1,500 for 30 minutes. She hits accept and then it notifies her, like, hey, here's where you have to go. She shows up, takes a selfie at Runza, submits proof, gets paid $1,500 right in her account. Right. And then she can go cash out. She's gonna get her tax documentation through this. And then at the end of the month on the 31st, she's gonna get alert that her contract with Nebraska, she's gonna get paid out her monthly payment from Nebraska through our app. And so all that's happening on the back end. So we're kind of helping these athletes become business minded, giving them the tools. And this is not too different from what you guys do in terms of the tools and and um bookkeeping and management and knowing what you got to do and where you got to go. So that's the athlete experience on our app. Um, and knowing that there's hundreds of thousands of athletes doing that and making hundreds of millions of dollars is really that's not really cool.
Chris AllenYou know, the the thing about it is like going from something that's with people that are enthusiastic about social media or having to do a brand endorsement deal, you know, and having it timed right, right before a game or whatever, and things like that. That was what the app was. And now it still does that. But also that that whole experience for a college athlete to be able to make six figures and seven figures is is a is a totally different world. Yeah. And you know, what what's sort of behind the glass that you're like, well, here's the stuff people don't talk about?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, here's what you guys here's what everyone needs to know is that right at the start of the decade, college athletes made zero dollars a year. Right? By the end of the decade, there'll be $5.1 billion paid to college athletes every year. There'll be the fourth largest source of income for athletes in America behind NFL's number one, then NBA, MLB, then college athletes. And that is that currently college athletes are getting about 22% of the earned revenue of these athletic departments. In the NFL, for example, they get 50% of the revenue. If college athletes ultimately get to that level, which a lot of us believe they will, college athletes will be earning $10 billion a year, and they'll be second in terms of earning power amongst athletes in North America behind the NFL players. That's the reality of this. And then each individual athlete, if you are a starting quarterback in the SEC in the Big Ten, you're pulling in between four and five million dollars a year.
Chris AllenMan.
SPEAKER_02Right? There are athletes that are taking pay cuts when they go to the NFL now. And that is a fantastically wild statement to say. And something that, you know, you and I probably couldn't have predicted 10 years ago we started working on this stuff, but now that's real significant dollars and it's highly competitive to get the right athlete to come to the right school, right place. And there's limits on how much the schools can pay.
Chris AllenYeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's created a significant opportunity for us.
Chris AllenMan, you know, and uh if you think about the the that whole phrase of like they're going into the you know, NFL and taking a pay cut, not everybody gets there and you know gets to go get drafted. Those are really small numbers that end up in those, you know, uh larger leagues. The people who go, the athletes that go from NIL into the workforce. You know, that that's a totally different thing, you know, that they're having to experience as well. Because I think there are really there are two major things that I think are really important for us as you know, HR or or entrepreneurs, you know, the people thing is really huge. And there's there's two things that I think you should comment on is one, what's it like to hire a college athlete? And then number two, what should marketing teams be thinking about with athlete marketing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. I if I if I'm a founder entrepreneur, I can tell you go hire a college athlete. Uh if you a high-level college athlete will walk into your business day one, and it's not their first paycheck, it's not their first time sitting down and being told what to do, and they're gonna have all those natural athlete instincts, which are teamwork, discipline, hard work, and commitment that every founder wants on their team. What they they've had that. College athletes have had that. It's always been a great hire. What they have now is the business brain.
Chris AllenOh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They understand the dollars and cents, they understand taxes, they understand that you got to make more money than you spend. You know, and that's a there's a foundational principle that sometimes college students go into the workforce and that's their very first paycheck. They didn't they don't understand the economics of making more money than you spend. They're trying to figure that out on the go. But these guys have four or five years of actual hard evidence of what it means to manage money because they themselves are a business, so they're gonna certainly help yours. So that's that's definitely advice that I give to any founder about should you hire a college athlete? Yes, and here's what you're gonna get with it. And they also know how to drive attention. They do. And Athletes are the center of our cultural community. I live in New York City. The New York Knicks, like Jalen Brunson, can do whatever he wants in New York City for the rest of his life. And yeah, shout out to JB. And um He's a Knicks fan in the Mac. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there I see that. I saw that jacket. I like that. Go Knicks. Let's go, Knicks. Knicks and five. Um that is true in every community at any level. You can go to a division three college, you then you go to the coffee shop or the barbershop, and they'll be able to name the most, the best athlete on the team. Right. And that athlete becomes part of a just a cultural movement. And if you can get the right athlete to say the right thing, right time, I think it's the best investment in marketing. Because creators and influencers are filling our feeds, guys. Everything that you're doing, you open up your Instagram, you open up TikTok, you're scrolling, you're watching YouTube, you're gonna see your creator, you're gonna see Chris Allen like show up. And Chris is gonna rely on content. He's gonna create great content to capture your attention. Athletes have this other thing where it's like they are playing for your favorite team. They are from your hometown. Like your connection, that person is deeper than what they're saying. They're doing something for you. And you can't really replace that. Like content can't replace the connection you have with athletes. The challenge is getting the right athletes to see the right thing at the right time. Like they are their focus on sport. And so we have to transform athletes into creators. And that's one of the biggest challenges of open doors, but we do it, and that's why brands come back. That's why brands spend tens of millions of dollars in our marketplace every year, because we make it easy to make working with an athlete kind of like working with a creator. Right? So it's very similar, but you have to navigate class schedules, sport schedules. But this the data says that the average engagement rate for an athlete compared to an influencer is five times that of an influencer. So that you're five times more likely to watch an athlete-driven piece of content than an influencer-driven piece of content. We lean into that, like, and I think most people in marketing should too. You just got to figure out how to do it. That's really where open doors is where you can start that journey.
Chris AllenYeah. I want to circle back uh to you know, you as a founder. Because I think one of my favorite things is watching you and Audi do interviews and people go like, man, how did this thing happen? Because it's such a unique business, right? Uh and being on the bleeding edge uh that you've been for a long time, as the you know, the founder, co-founder, you were the CEO for a long time. And you made a very interesting choice to focus on college, right, and hire a professional CEO. So talk to us a little bit about like the thought process that went into that and go and moving from being founder-led, right, to a professional CEO. What changed with your role and what what went into that decision?
SPEAKER_02Every entrepreneur, if you last a decade, will start to have that question like, am I can I get help? Like, um, am I the right person to lead this? Should I be in this role? Who can I learn from? You know, Audi and I, as former athletes, we're coachable, right? And we've been coaching ourselves for a long time. So I want you to take it to 2024. You know, our business gets to a point where we've got a, you know, tens of millions of dollars in revenue on this side and tens of millions of dollars on this side. And this is our college business, our commercial business. I'm sitting over top of it. So to give you an analogy, it's kind of like I'm the head coach and I'm the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator and the head coach, right? And one of these things is growing at a significant rate. The college business is so unique, and we are in such a prime position because remember, we're the first ones to do this. So these athletic directors, when they need to solve a problem, they call me.
Chris AllenYeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, this is like first name basis with everyone that you know in college sports. That that's that's a fantastic place to be. I also have to go build this business and build up the advertiser community relationships in New York City. Said, this is just too much. I what if I could just coach defense, right? What if I could just play linebacker a little bit and get somebody else that's been an offensive coordinator before and a head coach before? And that's the analogy I want to like bring to founders is we are we do everything. Founders do everything. But you don't have to do everything forever. Right? And and so for me, it was like stepping back and say, how good could defense be if that's all I did? And it's it's worked. We we brought a new CEO two years ago, Steve Denton, and he is somebody that's been part of multiple $500 million plus exits. He's been part of the billion dollar exits. He is a professional CEO in in every sense of the word. He's a founder first CEO, so he wants to take care of the founders, and he's done a great job with that with our team. And he's coaching offense, and he's a head coach. So, guys, this is really fun for me. I joined board calls, I'm on the board, and he has to run the board calls, and I get to ask questions, ask hard questions, you know. I I love it. I'm like, dude, this is hilarious, you know? And it's kind of like having your coach be able to go back and you're at a press conference and be in the audience asking questions. Uh it's it's awesome. It kind of ras them a little bit, and uh, but I've learned a lot as well. Like, this is a journey as a founder is sometimes uh very um lonely. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm thankful to have a founder. My my co-founder was my roommate, day one of college. Like I've seen this guy every day for 20 years. Uh, I think he's starting to see in my face, but um so I feel like we've been going on this journey together, but I want you to visualize a jungle and you both have machetes, and you're just hacking, right? And it's like, where are we going? I think that way, right? And you're but you're just hacking away, hacking away. You can't quite see what's in front of you. And when we brought in a CEO, it's like you got a jungle guide, you know? And he's like, guys, it ain't don't don't do that. Sharpen your blade, sit down, take a rest, like yeah, go this way. And I think that's been really fun because it feels like you're not so lonely. Uh, you also get to learn from somebody that's been there before, and it's kind of like having a coach again.
Chris AllenThat's amazing. What do you think the future of open doors and athlete marketing? Just what does it look like in another 10 years?
SPEAKER_02We are infrastructure for this athlete endorsement NIL industry. So, again, we're, you know, at Sherm, you can imagine you guys as a platform and and all those out there, like somebody has to do the last mile logistics, like actually get people paid, give them their tax documents. That will exist forever. Um, now when we talk to venture capital groups about their investment in open doors, I very simple belief is if you believe athletes will get paid more in the future, it's a very good investment.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02And I just explained to you guys that there's a clear path to $5 billion to $10 billion a year being paid to college athletes. We are one of very few platforms that are even in this space. So this is a billion dollars in transactions a year, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, like foundational of the athlete experience. But more importantly than dollars and cents in terms of volume, it's that athletes are showing up and we're guiding them through this journey. And if they're an athlete for one year or a decade, there's at least a company or platform that's with them. And yeah, and when they when they go from one school to the other, because they transfer in college, we're with them. When they go from college to pros, we're with them. And I think that's a very important because we're purpose-driven. I gotta go back to why I had to start something is because my career is over. And I want more and more athletes to have the opportunity to, in that moment, say that they did everything they could have done to be prepared for what's next.
Chris AllenAnd that's a key element of open doors. You know, one of the things that I love that you reminded me of is that that whole purpose-driven thing, you gotta tell everybody what the three core values are that we repeat or repeated every Monday morning.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no excuses, just results uh is is the one that comes straight straight to mind. We've switched, we've changed them since you. Really? Yeah. So you're no longer humble savages. Yeah, yeah, we became humble champions. That makes a part of that. Yeah, uh Hodge, be a humble champion, no excuse just results, and we are all in. Right. So those are the three original core values. So we are all in, be a humble champion, and no excuse to judge results. And we did say it every Monday. And again, for founders, entrepreneurs, there is, you know, that old saying, like you have to say something seven times before you hear it for the first time, like that concept. That is true. Like we I force our entire company to rehearse our core values every Monday and state company goals, state the vision, state the purpose every single Monday out loud. And I popcorn around the Zoom and call in one of the you know 100 people and say, Hey, you, what is our core value? Like, what's our core value? And because I have to say it out loud, and they do not know if it's gonna be them or not, like everyone has to know it. And if you don't know those core values on a Monday stand-up, like it's gonna like, oh, they must be new or they must not have been paying attention. Um, so it is something that has been a critical component, and it kind of feels like sports, yeah, right? Like we Bo Pellini was my coach in Nebraska, and he had this saying it said, you know, focus on the process, compete every day. Focus on the process, compete every day. And that is I it's written on on my whiteboard, it is written at the bottom of my emails. It is part of who I am, and it's because every day he said it to us. And I think there's just parts of the journey is being a part of a team and then becoming a founder that you you can borrow some things. And I'm glad that you remembered uh our core values every Monday.
Chris AllenWell, it's uh it's it's it was a really powerful uh thing to have a heartbeat at a company and a heartbeat from the top down. Uh so it was it was really powerful. Well, you know, Blake, we've we've talked about a lot of stuff. And one of the last questions that I I'd like you to just sort of leave us with an answer that we can carry with us is like, what is the number one thing uh that if any of us know an athlete uh that is a friend or a family member, what is what is sort of the one thing that they need to keep in mind as they sort of enter into like, man, I'm really good in high school, I'm going to college. What do you think they need to keep in mind? What could we tell every any of the people that we know?
SPEAKER_02One, open doors is there to help. That's why I'd say o-o-p-e-n-d-o-r-se.com. Can you go sign up and it's free? So yeah, go go get after it. But the reality is these athletes are making significant amounts of money at a young age. They do need to have people around them that can support them. Um, and there's two sides to college athlete compensation right now. The schools can pay them. That's like their your payroll, your salary. And there's a like not so hidden secret now that the schools can only pay 21 and a half, $21.3 million a year to their players across all sports to compete at a high level in that Big Ten, football alone costs you $52 million a year. So these schools are relying on outside parties like open doors to go source deals for athletes and to get them paid. And this part, like getting paid by your school, that's again like your payroll. But anyone in this room has done a side gig, a side hustle, you know, anything like that, like that takes work. Like you don't you you you you got the job. Good for you. You got the role, you're gonna get paid. Payroll hits on the 15th, last day of the month, awesome. But if you want to get that other money, that's a job. You know, and like I I want every athlete to understand that NIL is a job. It is just like every creator or influencer, you don't just wake up and roll out of bed and make money. You have to go do the appearance, record the content, do the photo shoot, video shoot, travel, sign autographs, and all those things take energy and time. And those that look at us a have to do, they're gonna fade from this industry. But if you look at us, I get to do this, because every time you're in the community signing autographs, you're sitting next to the chief marketing officer for a local business who's probably gonna give you a job offer if you do it right. If you show up poorly, you ain't getting that job offer. So every time these athletes show up to do the other stuff, it's a tryout. This is going to give them fundamentals that are important for life. And make the most of it because it is it's fleeting, it goes fast, it can be done in a day. So that I would that's what I tell every athlete is you never know when your last place is gonna be, your last day is gonna be. So make the most of every opportunity that get the paycheck, that's great. But all the outside things turn it into an opportunity to create like lifelong legacy and impact and maybe some money along the way.
Chris AllenMan, that's awesome. Hey, you know, Blake, thank you so much for flying all the way down here. Everybody, let's give Blake Lawrence a round of applause.
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